Perpendicular (1996)

Mercurial guitarist Ritchie Blackmore finally decided he was over Deep Purple. The band toured with Joe Satriani for a time, but when they offered Satch a permanent job, he begged off and recommended his old friend Steve. As it turned out, it was a match made In Rock.

Steve Morse says:

"Deep Purple was a lot like the Kansas experience in that I already knew what it was like to be outside the circle coming in, having some fans dislike a personnel change, not knowing the inside jokes among the band members, and so on.

"This turned out to be a great experience, though, because everyone was so open to try anything, leading to some very inventive ideas, and no strategically engineered tunes aimed at a certain target audience.

"The song Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming was an instrumental bit that I was practicing on a break. Roger Glover and Jon Lord suggested working more on that, and by the end of the day, that whole tune, which is on our live set list still, was recorded."